Named after historic St. Paul's Chapel
located across the street, the slender tower of the St. Paul Building
rose 315 feet above Broadway and Ann Street, filling a small five-sided
lot. Architect and engineer George B. Post, designer of the World
Building, stacked its twenty-six stories with repeating ionic orders,
and terminated the composition of horizontals with a classical cornice
rather than a dome or flagstaff. The ornate limestone facade was
cantilevered from the floor girders with the main structural members
placed within the pier faces protected from heat and moisture. The
speculative tower was little loved by critics, one of whom called it
"perhaps the least attractive design of all New York's skyscrapers."